Think of it as David Miller’s final triumph. A victory from the grave, a belated gift to the people of Toronto, more than two years after he left the mayor’s office.

The former mayor always insisted his war on the car was a myth. That he didn’t deliberately set out to make life as miserable as possible for anyone who preferred their car over mass transit. He just didn’t do anything to alleviate the constant traffic troubles, and supported any initiative that happened to have the side effect of complicating the already-difficult task of getting from Point A to Point B be while behind the wheel.

While deliberate or not, the effect was the same: a traffic nightmare that parallels the working day, and often extends into weekends. Now, as Mr. Miller looks on in retirement, it appears the city may finally have had enough, and is throwing in the towel. All right, already, we give up. The car is dead. We’ll build the freaking transit network. Anything to end the pain.

On Wednesday the chairman and vice-chair of the city’s transit commission unveiled a surprise proposal for The Transit Plan of the Century. It would cost $30 billion, take 30 years to build, and deliver just about every transit bauble you could imagine. New subways! New streetcars! New Light-Rail Transit, which is, like, faster streetcars! All the bits and pieces of the existing network, which is OK if you happen to live right beside it but grossly out of date and far too small for the population, would be connected. You could get from any corner of the city to any other corner via transit, and not have to take an overnight bag to do it.

And it’s not dead on arrival. Shockingly, much of it makes sense. Could it be that Toronto has actually produced a big idea based on a grand vision, that would greatly improve city life and might actually be affordable? Toronto?? Nah, must be a mistake.

The scheme is so big it goes well beyond anything even Mr. Miller ever proposed. It takes his own ambitious transit plan, known as Transit City, and expands it. It is light years ahead of the limited, subway-centric proposals of Miller’s successor, Rob Ford. It does so by daring to explore territory where neither of those men was willing to go, deep into the realm of higher taxes. Authors Karen Stintz and Glenn De Baeremaeker admit with bare-faced cheek that paying for it would require the city to charge more in taxes. Not a lot more – about $180 a year to the average home – but Toronto municipal leaders have long resisted talk of tax increases, largely because voters don’t think the level of service they get is worth it. Torontonians pay significantly less in property taxes than most of surrounding suburbs (to which they imagine themselves infinitely superior), and you can tell. Even Miller, an NDP supporter with the usual NDP disdain for sound economics, preferred jacking up fees, levies and licence charges rather than adopt a straightforward tax hike.

The Stintz/ De Baeremaeker scheme would require some co-operation from the province, and much additional cash. It is sure to spark cries of horror. Mr. Ford hates taxes. So does his brother Doug, who immediately dismissed the plan as “a way to save Glenn De Tax-maker’s political ass.”

“It’s a tax city plan, it’s not a one city plan,” Ford said. “It’s unfunded. I don’t think they’ve run the numbers properly.”

But the Fords’ hold on council seems to lessen with each passing day. The last thing the mayor opposed was the 5-cent tax on plastic bags, so council just banned plastic bags, and made him look ridiculous. For the Fords to criticize the economics of the Stintz plan is more than a bit rich, considering their own subway proposal foundered on their total inability to explain how it would be paid for.

Ms. Stintz keeps insisting she’s not planning to run for mayor, and isn’t out to outmanoeuvre the mayor at every turn. It just seems to keep happening. Maybe Mr. Ford will eventually recognize the proposal for what it is: an ambitious but not outlandish idea that would give him everything he promised voters and more, and represents the kind of challenge great cities embrace.

It would be totally unlike him, though, and almost equally unlike stodgy, unimaginative old Toronto. So don’t hold your breath, unless it’s to avoid inhaling the fumes of Toronto’s backed up traffic.

Brett Gundlock / National PostHaving just finished personally building one subway car, Rob Ford is .00047% of the way to completing his goal of underground transit in Toronto.

On Wednesday night, after a day of debate and arguing, Toronto City Council voted 25-18 to reject Mayor Rob Ford’s plans for making underground transit the future of Toronto’s infrastructure development. The Ford Plan, as it’s been dubbed, involved building a light-rail line entirely underground, running east to west across the middle of the city, and to extend an existing subway line deep into the city’s northeastern suburbs.

It’s a plan with a lot of merit, but was hotly contested by a faction of council that preferred building a greater number of light-rail lines into more Toronto neighbourhoods. By only burying the LRTs below ground when absolutely necessary due to geography or urban density, this plan would have traded quality for quantity — LRTs aren’t as good as subways, but there would be more of them, serving more people. This plan, too, has merit, but could have been defeated had the Mayor made any of a series of entirely logical, compelling arguments against them. But he didn’t bother, and his actions (both before and after the final vote) show why — even when he has logic on his side, he’s such a terrible communicator that he can’t help but be his own worst enemy.

The main issue that divided the plan was what to do with the Eglinton Crosstown — the proposed east-west LRT running the breadth of the city along Eglinton Avenue. The original plan for Eglinton was that it be at ground-level, except for several kilometres right in the centre of Toronto, which is too dense and busy to cram in trains on the already crowded streets. Mayor Ford, a sworn enemy of any transit plan that removes lanes from roads, insisted that the entire LRT line be buried underground. That’s expensive, but Ford won a victory when he was able to convince the government of Ontario to pick up the entire tab — better than eight-billion bucks.

But that money is entirely and explicitly linked to the construction of a below-ground Eglinton LRT. Ford’s opponents on council have either overlooked or chosen to ignore this fact, and have acted during their discussions as if the province has simply handed the city a briefcase stuffed with $8-billion in 20s and 50s, that the city is free to spend as it will. It’s entirely possible that Ontario might agree to allow Toronto to take that $8-billion and use some of it — the portion saved by not burying part of the Eglinton line — on other transit projects. But that’s not a given. When one considers the lousy economic shape Ontario is in, you can easily see that they would prefer to simply revoke their promise of cash and wash their hands of the whole thing, using the city’s decision to walk away from the prior plan as justification.

After Wednesday’s vote went against him, Ford seemed to want to make this point. And it’s a point worth making, loudly, again and again. But he wasn’t able to.

He should have said something like, “City Council has rushed to make a decision tonight without first consulting with all of the stakeholders. Because of their haste, the agreement I negotiated with the province is now in doubt, and until we are able to sit down with the province and discuss this situation, it would be premature to declare that council’s plan will necessarily prevail.”

But he didn’t say that. What he said was, “Technically speaking, that whole meeting was irrelevant.”

No, Mayor Tone-Deaf. The meeting was not “irrelevant.” Council may be wrong, it may be boorish, it may be (and probably is) putting its personal dislike for you ahead of what’s best for the city. But it is never irrelevant. No matter how much you may wish council was irrelevant, it has just publicly rejected your plan. It has undercut your leadership and jeopardized your agreement with Ontario. How could that be irrelevant?

It never needed to come to this, and Ford must shoulder some of the responsibility there, too. Karen Stintz, the Toronto Transit Commission chair, had proposed a compromise plan several weeks ago that would have preserved much of the Mayor’s plan — not all, but much. Ford rejected it out of hand. Gordon Chong, a former city councillor that Ford hired to prepare a plan showing how the Mayor’s plan was fiscally feasible, spent a year doing exactly that, and determined that it was, indeed, a workable plan. But some new parking fees and road tolls were going to be necessary. Ford shot down that report instantly, and simply declared he’d go ahead and build the subway anyway. The giant unanswered question left hanging in the air was, “With what money?” But Ford didn’t seem bothered by that. “I was elected to build subways,” he said. “And that’s what I’m doing.”

How? When? Where? With who? Doesn’t matter. Trust him. The subway will get built. That’s why he was elected. And that, apparently, is that.

Ford’s transit plan is arguably superior to the version endorsed by his opponents in council. And even if it isn’t, his assessment of the difficulties in getting Ontario onside is correct. But other than repeating his (admittedly accurate) mantra of “I campaigned on subways” and casually dismissing the publicly spoken will of Toronto’s elected governing body, he has done little to support his own plan — and has even rejected compromises that would have protected and promoted at least most of it. After Wednesday’s vote, he spent hours riding buses, subways and trains in Toronto, talking to voters. It was obviously a political stunt, but even so … why did he wait until after he lost before pulling it?

A fierce battle for Toronto’s transit direction reached a dramatic climax on Wednesday, with city council endorsing a light rail vision championed by the TTC chairwoman — and a defeated Mayor Rob Ford dismissing the vote as irrelevant.

By a margin of 25 to 18, council rejected the Mayor’s tunnel-only edict and backed parts of a plan, once known as Transit City, to construct a light rail line on Finch Avenue and one along Eglinton Avenue that is both underground and at street level and to revamp the Scarborough RT. Councillors put off making a decision on Sheppard Avenue, leaving the door open to the subway that Mayor Ford so fervently wants to build.

Following a standing ovation, TTC Chairwoman Karen Stintz lauded the “common sense compromise” that “sent a strong message to the province” about how the city wants to spend $8.4-billion earmarked for transit expansion.

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“It’s been a long too weeks,” said the chairwoman, who broke ranks with the Mayor and headed a coalition of councillors convinced that the best way to build transit in Toronto is to opt for the more affordable surface LRTs and spread provincial funding around.

Moments later, a defiant Mayor lamented a decision he maintains ignores taxpayers. He was unable to convince council to put off the vote for a month so that a panel of experts could weigh in. “I’m very confident the Premier is going to build subways,” Mr. Ford said. “Technically speaking, that whole meeting was irrelevant because it’s a provincial project.”

Ontario Transportation Minister Bob Chiarelli sent a strong signal otherwise, however, issuing a statement following the decision that said he has always “respected the will of council.” Mr. Chiarelli has asked Metrolinx, the agency spearheading transit expansion, to report back as quickly as possible on whether council’s position meets the agency’s objectives. The lines were to be built by 2020.

“Now is the time to move forward. What matters most to Torontonians is that we get shovels in the ground and deliver transit in Toronto,” the Minister said.

But the Mayor’s comments incensed his opponents, and sent his allies into damage control.

“It is remarkable to me to hear our Mayor say that council’s decision is irrelevant. He needs to better understand the governance model of the city of Toronto,” said Councillor Josh Matlow.

Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong suggested the Mayor was speaking emotionally, because he so passionately believes that voters gave him a mandate to build subways.

“If there’s a vote of council, it’s the law. I don’t know how people would defy that law,” said Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Eh2dBlarX4&w=620&h=379]

It all capped off a wild day in the council chambers, with Scarborough Councillor Raymond Cho likening Mr. Ford to “a dictator”, North York Councillor Maria Augimeri calling the Premier a “deadbeat” on operational transit funding, while the Mayor’s brother and the TTC chief general manager debated if the St. Clair right-of-way was a “disaster” or a “success.” Buttons emblazoned with “Karen Stintz Fan Club” and “I heart Gary Webster” [the TTC chief general manager] were circulated.

What became a messy fight began when Mayor Ford declared Transit City dead his first day in office in the fall of 2010. The Mayor later struck a deal, that required council approval, with the province that diverted funding for four LRT lines into tunnelling the Eglinton Crosstown and revamping the Scarborough RT, while the city sought funding to build an extension to the Sheppard subway. About two weeks ago, Ms. Stintz went public with her opposition. When the Mayor refused to abandon his pursuit of underground transit, Ms. Stintz began promoting the Transit City plan, which originally envisioned light rail on Sheppard. An attempt by Ford allies Michael Thompson and Peter Milczyn to strike a compromise with the other side that the Mayor would support fizzled Tuesday evening.

On Wednesday, Mayor Ford argued that councillors were making a decision without enough information. Ms. Stintz referred to a battery of studies and technical reports that have been done for the light rail plan.

Council voted 28 to 15 to strike an advisory panel, including representatives from Metrolinx, the TTC, the Toronto Board of Trade, former mayor David Crombie, University of Toronto professor Eric Miller, and Dr. Gordon Chong, the Mayor’s subway advisor, to report back by March 21 on how best to move forward on Sheppard. Ms. Stintz said it will give the Mayor more time to find funding for the Sheppard subway extension he campaigned on. Deciding not to bury all of Eglinton also frees up money that could help the construction.

Still, Ford allies voiced serious concerns with Wednesday’s decision.

“I can assure you this fight is not over, we will stand up for the people in the suburbs, they deserve better than a two-tier system, they deserve better than a trolley system,” Councillor Doug Ford thundered during his speech.

Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti said his residents were being forced to accept an LRT along Finch that they didn’t want. He had wanted to give up the funding so that he could continue to lobby for a subway on Finch.

Similarly, Scarborough councillors said their residents have been short-changed. “They do get a transit line, but I don’t think it’s the best transit line for the needs of the residents,” said Councillor Gary Crawford, who represents Scarborough Southwest. He said he will respect the decision made by council.

Ms Stintz said she believes the province will listen. “We had some pretty solid legal advice to make sure the motion was clear and gave the province direction so that we can continue to get these projects built on time,” she said.

National Post

Download a copy of the TTC Power Point presented in council on Wednesday by Karen Stintz.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/toronto/future-of-transit-expansion-in-toronto-comes-to-a-head-wednesday/feed/7stdKaren Stintz (Aaron Lynett/National Post)Rob Ford speaks with deputy mayor Doug Holyday ahead of the meeting, February 8, 2012Peter Kuitenbrouwer: Council makes it seem easier to build rail through the Rockies than to get transit to Scarboroughhttp://news.nationalpost.com/toronto/peter-kuitenbrouwer-council-makes-it-seem-easier-to-build-rail-through-the-rockies-than-getting-transit-to-scarborough
http://news.nationalpost.com/toronto/peter-kuitenbrouwer-council-makes-it-seem-easier-to-build-rail-through-the-rockies-than-getting-transit-to-scarborough#commentsWed, 08 Feb 2012 17:07:39 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=138584

The Ontario Science Centre is playing a wonderful IMAX film, Rocky Mountain Express, which I watched the other day while joining my son’s Grade 4 class field trip. The film tells the harrowing story of the avalanches, rock slides, fires and snowstorms; the gorges, canyons, rivers and bottomless lakes, that imperiled and bedeviled those Canadians charged with punching national railways through the rocky mountains in the 1870s and 1880s. Workers and planners and engineers raced against a deadline set by British Columbia (the province of my birth), which had made the railway a condition of remaining in Confederation.

Punching a railway through the Rockies has proven faster and easier compared with bringing rapid transit past the Science Centre to Scarborough. Based on our progress, I encourage Scarborough to secede from Toronto. Back in the 1870s visionaries such as William Cornelius Van Horne came forward to build a railway. Where are our visionaries today?

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The only guy that comes off okay in this story is Mayor Rob Ford. At least he is consistent in his view: he wants a subway on Eglinton, from Black Creek Drive to Kennedy station. The rest of them are all prevaricators, who wouldn’t last a night in the Rogers Pass.

Councillor Karen Stintz has consistently supported the Transit City plan for light rail, largely in dedicated rights-of-way at grade … except for the small detail that she accepted Rob Ford’s appointment to chair the TTC, knowing full well that he wanted no part of light rail lines at grade.

Nine councillors in Scarborough in 2006 supported a light rail network, including, “40 kilometres of surface streetcar/LRT or bus rapid transit,” including lines on Sheppard Avenue East and Eglinton Avenue East. Six years later councillors Mike Del Grande, Norm Kelly, Paul Ainslie and Michael Thompson have changed their votes and joined Rob Ford in supporting his plan for an underground train on Eglinton Avenue to Kennedy Station.

The prize for the worst railroaders goes to Metrolinx, the provincial agency established in 2006. Metrolinx received “the mandate to develop and implement an integrated multi-modal transportation plan for the greater Toronto area and Hamilton.” Metrolinx appeared a good idea; finally a provincial body would cut through petty bickering and build transit.

But Metrolinx dropped the ball. Its failure has brought us to Wednesday, where dozens of councillors are in pitched battle against one another on the floor of Council, surrounded by more TV crews and advocates than showed up for the budget debate, clawing and biting at one another because Metrolinx couldn’t show backbone.

Rick Ducharme, chief general manager of the TTC, 1999-2006, who sat in the audience Wednesday for the council debate, summed up the bickering perfectly: “To me, Metrolinx is a failure. When I see this going on. This was supposed to end.”

Then in 2010 along came Mr. Ford, who announced that “Transit City is dead.” Metrolinx nodded. We then learned that Metrolinx has no resolve nor mandate to “develop and implement” a transportation plan. It is a will-o-the-wisp agency of paper-pushing bureaucrats who approve, and then unapprove, transit lines (even those, like Sheppard, that were already under construction), cut deals with whomever happens to be mayor, regardless of what they had previously agreed, waste our money at will, and build no rapid transit at Toronto voters have elected Dalton McGuinty as premier three times, at least in part because he sounded like he wanted to improve transportation in this town. Like our ancestors out west, Mr. McGuinty, his transportation minister Bob Chiarelli, and their agency, Metrolinx, need to show they can finish the job. They don’t have much time.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/toronto/peter-kuitenbrouwer-council-makes-it-seem-easier-to-build-rail-through-the-rockies-than-getting-transit-to-scarborough/feed/0stdA still from the IMAX movie Rocky Mountain ExpressEditorial: Transit feuding not the better way for Torontohttp://news.nationalpost.com/toronto/toronto-transit
http://news.nationalpost.com/toronto/toronto-transit#commentsWed, 08 Feb 2012 05:16:52 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=138333

Toronto city council meets today in a special session to vote on a motion by Transit Commission chair Karen Stintz. The motion, if passed, would mandate council to ask the province of Ontario to ignore the transit plan of Mayor Rob Ford, which envisaged burying the entire length of the proposed Eglinton Avenue light rail transit (LRT). The money thus saved would be used to build LRTs on Finch and Sheppard avenues and modernize the Scarborough RT — essentially resurrecting the “Transit City” plan adopted during the administration of former mayor David Miller, and then cancelled at newly installed Mayor Ford’s first press conference.

Talks aimed at reaching a compromise came to naught last night and the issue, complicated by the involvement of multiple levels of government and various agencies, is rapidly becoming a political debacle of the highest order. Both sides are acting recklessly and with too little care given to the public interest.

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Mayor Ford, who campaigned explicitly on the subway issue, is correct when he says that subways, or at least underground mass transit, is preferable in that it lasts longer and does not disrupt surface transport. He also is right to fear another fiasco like the St. Clair streetcar line, which was overbudget, four years late, runs infrequently outside of rush hour and has seriously disrupted automobile traffic along a central Toronto east-west artery.

.CLICK TO ENLARGE

But Mayor Ford’s opponents also are right to point out that the advantages of underground transit come with much higher costs — more than the city can afford.

The Mayor has adamantly refused to consider the road tolls and additional taxes that even his allies agree are necessary to fund his plan, which envisions the province paying to bury Eglinton’s LRT while Toronto pays for an extension of the Sheppard subway line into Scarborough.

These differences of opinion might be threshed out in the normal way that such matters are. Yet both sides have girded for political battle, apparently driven as much by spite as by actual policy differences. Today’s vote is being taken in haste, at a time when emotions are running high. This is no way to make a decision about a multi-billion-dollar project that will define Toronto’s transportation infrastructure for generations to come.

The result of this childish spat could be that both sides lose. Metrolinx, the regional transport agency empowered by the government of Ontario to handle transportation infrastructure development in the Greater Toronto Area, had agreed to fund the entire Eglinton Avenue project, to the tune of $8-billion. But the cash-strapped provincial government would be entirely justified in revoking that cash until and unless council gets its act together. Toronto seems determined to give Ontario every reason to do exactly that.

Metrolinx has given Toronto until the end of March to come up with a final transit plan. The Mayor and his allies should make good use of that time, and set aside the petulance and threats. For their part, the Mayor’s opponents should recall that Rob Ford was duly elected to the city’s top office, and did indeed campaign on subways.

Most importantly of all, both sides need to dial down the rhetoric, which has reached alarming, almost laughable levels. On Tuesday, for instance, Councillor Norm Kelly, a Ford ally, seriously proposed that the Mayor should order his plan implemented no matter how council votes today: “I prefer to rest my case on the will of the people rather than on the expression of council.” This is the Vladimir Putin approach to municipal politics.

Transit in the Toronto region has been neglected for years. And with an estimated three million more people expected to make the GTA their home by 2030, the upgrade process needs to begin soon. Toronto cannot afford more wasted time on go-nowhere transit plans.

City council, and the Mayor, must spend the next several weeks in consultations with Metrolinx (which is not inclined to support any plan the Mayor does not approve) to determine exactly what funds can be used for which projects, and which projects the public supports. Council, and the people, should be consulted. That can’t be done in a matter of days or hours. But it can be done within seven weeks — assuming the people who lead this city act like adults.
National Post

Metrolinx president Bruce McCuaig said this plan has its benefits. LRTs that are at the surface can have more stops because they are cheaper to build, although this would also slow down travel time. Because the Eglinton line would be partially above ground it would be cheaper, leaving money to pay for lines in other parts of the city. In May 2010, then Metrolinx president, now chair Robert Prichard advocated for the four lines, saying that Sheppard and Finch lack the density and demand to support a subway at three times the cost.

Everyone wants subways, but critics point out that there is no secured funding to pay for the 12-kilometre Sheppard extension. A report commissioned by Mayor Rob Ford determined that the extension is “feasible” with substantial private sector financing and revenue tools such as parking taxes. “It’s not about subways. It’s how you pay for subways,” said Ms. Stintz. “And I’ve asked the Mayor repeatedly, ‘Show me a plan that pays for the Sheppard subway,’ and after a year we still don’t have a plan.”

Mr. McCuaig, of Metrolinx, said that even though this version of the Eglinton Crosstown costs almost $2-billion more, “it does deliver greater benefits.” They calculate that it will cut travel time by 25% because underground trains can gather more speed. It has greater reliability because it is separate from car traffic, and peak time ridership that is double. The capacity is also double than a line that was partially on the surface. Karen Stintz, chair of the TTC, said Metrolinx failed to note that some of the additional ridership on the Eglinton line comes from the Bloor Danforth line. “That doesn’t necessarily improve transit in the whole city,” she said.

TTC Chair Karen Stintz has submitted a petition with 24 signatures on it calling for a special meeting to resurrect part of the light rail plan known as Transit City, even as one Ford ally denounced her efforts as a “coup.”

The transit rebellion defies the wishes of Mayor Rob Ford, who has been adamantly promoting underground transit expansion, in particular building a subway on Sheppard. On Wednesday, Ms. Stintz will ask council to reaffirm its support of building four predominantly surface light rail lines along Sheppard, Finch, Eglinton avenues and a revamped Scarborough RT.

“It makes sense from a transit perspective, it serves the most residents in the city,” she told reporters, flanked by left-leaning councillor Joe Mihevc and centrist councillor Josh Colle.

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Mayor Rob Ford did not take questions on the matter at his morning weigh in, and his brother Councillor Doug Ford promised to have something to say about it at a later time.

Aaron Lynett/National PostThe petition. Click to enlarge

Meanwhile, Ford allies sought to cast doubt on the opposition’s efforts. Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday expressed concern that council would rush into a decision without all the information before it. “If you’re going to put the subway for 100 years, that’s probably the best way to go as opposed to an above ground line than in 25 years we’ll be tearing down to build again,” he said. “Twenty-four people can sign whatever they want, doesn’t make it right.”

Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti denounced the “coup” led by Ms. Stintz. He said she does not know what residents in his North York ward want along Finch.

“The Mayor has given me the indication that this administration would like to see a subway go to the airport along Finch,” said “If someone tells me there is no hope a subway will get to my ward in 10 or 15 or 20 years, then of course I would want to revisit an LRT, but nobody has said that to me yet.” Mr. Mammoliti also lashed out at “lazy” TTC bureaucrats who have not found private partners to build a subway. “If you ask me who should go on the TTC, it’s those top bureaucrats who should be fired immediately,” he said, including chief general manager Gary Webster. There are more questions about the future of Ms. Stintz as its chair. Councillor Norm Kelly, a commissioner, said it was unusual for a chair to be in such open conflict with the Mayor.

“Could you have imagine Giambrone giving the finger to Miller?” he asked, referring to former TTC chair Adam Giambrone during former mayor David Miller’s tenure.

Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion has lined up against her Toronto counterpart, arguing the Ford administration did not have the authority to unilaterally cancel Transit City.

The long-time Mississauga mayor’s comments came just days after Toronto Councillor Joe Mihevc released a legal opinion stating Mayor Rob Ford overstepped by cancelling the light-rail network — and instead pushing a subway plan — without a council vote.

“In my opinion, you don’t need legal advice. It has to go to council,” Ms. McCallion said Wednesday during a general committee meeting. “I don’t think the mayor, any mayor in Ontario, has that authority.”

“Generally council is the only one that can overturn council decisions,” she said.

Transit City, a planned light-rail network with lines on Sheppard, Finch and Eglinton avenues, was approved by the TTC in 2007 before city council voted on elements of it. Cancelling the plan was Mr. Ford’s first official action as mayor.

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He instead called for the money to be used to turn a proposed Eglinton LRT line into a subway. The legal opinion commissioned by Councilor Mihevc argues that Mayor Ford did not have the executive authority to declare Transit City’s demise without the approval of council.

In December, TTC general manager Gary Webster reported that the cancellation had cost the city $65 million in penalties. At the time of its cancellation, $137 million had already been spent on Transit City.

Tristin Hopper, National Post

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/toronto/torontos-rob-ford-overstepped-his-authority-in-cancelling-transit-city-legal-opinion/feed/5stdToronto Mayor Rob Ford pictured at City Hall on Thursday, January 12, 2012.Chris Selley: This is no time to get cute on transithttp://news.nationalpost.com/toronto/chris-selley-this-is-no-time-to-get-cute-on-transit
http://news.nationalpost.com/toronto/chris-selley-this-is-no-time-to-get-cute-on-transit#commentsTue, 24 Jan 2012 17:47:13 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=132762

Aaron Lynett / National PostYonge Street and Eglinton Avenue: "The major frustration is the image of proponents of a full-fledged Eglinton subway line circling the conflict like vultures awaiting carrion," Chris Selley writes

Reading Monday’s news, wherein TTC Chair Karen Stintz takes the entirely reasonable position that burying an LRT line underneath Eglinton Avenue outside the core of the city is a waste of money, the major frustration isn’t so much the conflict between Ms. Stintz’s position and Rob Ford’s well-known belief that light rail at grade is pure evil. The major frustration is the image of proponents of a full-fledged Eglinton subway line circling the conflict like vultures awaiting carrion.

Ms. Stintz herself didn’t help matters with this quote in The Globe and Mail: “If the decision is to go with an LRT, it should be at-grade. If there’s a decision to put it underground, it should be a subway.” I suspect this isn’t what she meant, but on that principle the entire current plan for Eglinton should be flushed down the toilet. Which would be an utter disaster.

There are perfectly sound arguments to be made for an Eglinton subway. Once, they won the day. So we dug a hole, then filled it in when the funding got cancelled. This is an extremely welcome reminder that funding can get cancelled, so for God’s sake get your shovels in the ground as fast as you can.

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Later, Eglinton subway proponents lost the day somewhat to the David Miller-backed Transit City plan: An LRT line, underground in the core and at grade in the boonies. Mr. Ford rejiggered that plan such that it would all be underground — which is to say he sketched it on the back of a napkin and left it to staff to figure out the details. When it comes to traversing the Don Valley, it’s probably unfeasible from an engineering standpoint, never mind a financial one.

But again, reading Monday’s news, it’s easy to overlook a crucial point of agreement between the Transit City and Ford camps: That we should build an 11-kilometre stretch of underground light rail between Laird Avenue and Jane Street. Those aren’t ideal termini, obviously. But forget everything east and west of there for a second: If roughly that stretch opened for business tomorrow, the overall state of public transit in Toronto would be hugely improved.

It would be madness to put that point of agreement at risk by bringing other options, like a subway, back into the equation.

Subway-boosters need to bear in mind that Mr. Ford himself would, of course, prefer a subway. He came to support the underground LRT in a rare concession to public transit reality — namely, that the Eglinton portion of Transit City was too far along, with too much money spent, to cancel entirely. If it hadn’t been, he likely would have prioritized his Sheppard subway plan above anything for Eglinton. The spectre of nothing ever happening looms terrifyingly over these debates.

Centrist and leftist councillors may be emboldened by their successful tweaks to Mr. Ford’s budget to attempt similar meddling with his transit plan (such as it is). To the extent that plan is unfeasible, that’s entirely welcome. So if they think they can revive the original Eglinton plan, fine. The savings could be redistributed for a Finch LRT or (as Ms. Stintz prefers, presumably in deference to Mr. Ford) a Sheppard subway. That said, every week of indecision and bickering further annoys Queen’s Park. Every tweak bleeds away time and money, as we’ve seen with Mr. Ford’s Sheppard plan.

Councillors need to resist the urge to revert to Sim City mode, advocating for options that weren’t funded or had nothing to do with Transit City — an Eglinton subway, a Downtown Relief Line, whatever. We need to build something. Desperately. Transit City wasn’t perfect, but it was a plan, and the opposition to it was based largely on misinformation and spite against Mr. Miller. The environmental assessments were done. The battles were won. Money — for portions of it at least — was secured. There is no reason to believe portions of that plan can’t be resuscitated. If we can’t keep the transit debate strictly within those parameters, we might well be riding buses along Eglinton Avenue in 2062.

The cost of Rob Ford killing Transit City now seems certain to surpass the cost of David Miller killing the Island Airport bridge. If so, it will become the new champion of our proud municipal pastime: Tearing up perfectly good plans, at great cost, because the Mayor has a weird hangup about a certain kind of infrastructure.

According to TTC general manager Gary Webster, Metrolinx puts the price at up to $65-million. That’s $30-million more than the taxpayers coughed up to the Port Authority after city council voted to kill the bridge. (The Port Authority is currently building to tunnel, and basically no one cares.) Mr. Ford calls the number “fictitious,” but even at a quarter of that, it’s an awful lot more than the zero we were promised.

Whatever the number is, it adds yet more context to Mr. Ford’s “Torontonians want subways” mantra. Doug Ford was chanting it again this week. What else could he say, but “we give up”? On Monday, Gordon Chong — the former city councillor tasked by the Mayor to study his Sheppard subway plan — opined that the private sector could only be expected to pay, at most, 30% of the cost, leaving at least $3-billion for City Hall to pick up. Meanwhile, Scarborough residents were coming to terms with replacing their existing elevated rapid transit line with buses, for at least four years.

Torontonians do want subways, but not at any cost. And wanting a subway does not mean preferring a bus route to an LRT. The more implausible the Fords’ assurances of success become, the more everything finds its way back on to the table. Are transit-riders along Sheppard sure they prefer the status quo to an LRT? Does it really make sense to bury the entire Eglinton LRT? If Mr. Ford comes to accept Mr. Chong’s views on Sheppard, he might start chintzing other projects to feed the beast. And with Ford Nation not quite the fearsome force it once was, Queen’s Park might one day tire of the whole ordeal.

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In short, chances are pretty good that when the 2014 mayoral election campaign kicks off, Mr. Ford’s transit plans will be no less vulnerable to fiddling or cancellation than Mr. Miller’s were in 2010. Candidates will again be bandying around transit plans with ludicrously optimistic price tags attached to them, contingent upon the province finally coming to its senses and helping us out.

Here’s another idea: What if Toronto decided to fund transit infrastructure, in large part, by itself?

Recently it has become fashionable to suggest raising taxes: property taxes, car registration taxes, liquor taxes, “amusement” taxes, you name it. In large part it’s fashionable because there isn’t an election for three years and because the budget shortfall for 2012 is relatively small. Why close a library, people ask, when an unnoticeably minute tax hike would eliminate the need?

But what if a mayoral candidate stuck his or her neck out and proposed raising taxes massively, while continuing (hopefully improving) Mr. Ford’s war on waste and big government?

These are broad strokes, but Toronto raises around $3.7-billion in property tax alone, and charges vastly lower rates than most nearby jurisdictions. Jack that up by 25% or 50% or even more, and Toronto could still claim competitive rates, while fairly quickly accumulating a large pile of dough to spend on transit infrastructure to benefit everyone. If Torontonians are as sick of this city’s outmoded infrastructure as they say, then here would be their opportunity to become masters of their own house.

This wouldn’t eliminate arguments about which infrastructure to build, although transit tends to be much less contentious once it actually exists. (Streetcars are a notable exception.) It would take a very charismatic and trustworthy person to sell such an idea to the tax-hating public. And it is far from risk-free: Bad things can happen when you raise taxes, and it would certainly be nice to keep them low. It’s not a prospect I enjoy.

But, well, do we want vastly improved public transit or don’t we? The idea of this transit war dragging its sorry arse into another election is too awful to contemplate, and the chances of sufficient contributions from Queen’s Park or Parliament Hill are non-existent. Someone needs to change the channel — for example, from “what” to “how.” It shouldn’t be about subways vs. LRTs. It should be about improving public transit for everyone, as appropriate. The first thing you need is money, and for too long, that’s been the last thing Toronto has.
National Post• Email: cselley@nationalpost.com | Twitter: cselley

Mayor Rob Ford says he is pinching pennies, but he has failed to mention a whopping bill that the Province of Ontario is still preparing to send to the City of Toronto, related to Mr. Ford’s cancellation last fall of Mayor David Miller’s Transit City program.

On Monday I reminded readers that, in cancelling the Sheppard East LRT, Mr. Ford had left $333-million in federal money on the table. In addition, the Post has confirmed, the City of Toronto also still must repay the province the “sunk costs,” at minimum $49-million, that the province had already spent on light rail lines later scrapped by Mr. Ford.

Here is an emailed response from Metrolinx spokeswoman Vanessa Thomas to questions about these sunk costs.

Q Has Metrolinx sent the City a bill yet for the sunk costs associated with the cancellation of Transit City?
A “At this time, an invoice for the sunk costs related to changes to the original 5 in 10 plan, also known as Transit City, has not been submitted to the City of Toronto. As part of the Memorandum of Agreement between the City and Metrolinx, the City will be absorbing the costs related to changing the original 5 in 10 plan, which included the four LRT lines in Toronto.

“Currently, we are still reviewing the costs with the TTC and our suppliers. It is important for us to be as accurate as possible and it will take some time to determine the exact impacts of the changes to the transit plan.

“As of April 2011, we estimated the sunk costs would be at least $49 million, which is mainly for work associated with the environmental assessments and design/engineering and project management associated with the Finch and Sheppard LRTs.”

Here’s an interesting election strategy: Take a chronic problem that affects millions and has existed for decades, and say that your government couldn’t do anything about it in eight years because of a guy who took office less than eight months ago. Sure, that’ll convince a lot of people.

Ontario Infrastructure Minister Bob Chiarelli seems to think it will, at any rate. On Tuesday, he told reporters that traffic gridlock in the Toronto area shouldn’t be blamed on the Liberals, but Rob Ford, Toronto’s rookie mayor. “We’ve just seen in the city of Toronto a new mayor come in and want to … significantly re-do the priorities that had been set under a period of years. Our money’s been on the table, our money has adjusted to the circumstances.”

See, thing is, I’m pretty sure traffic jams in Toronto didn’t suddenly pop into existence the instant Rob Ford decided to pull the plug on former mayor David Miller’s transit plan. In fact, the Transit City plan was itself enacted to deal with Toronto’s serious problem with — wait for it — gridlock. Logic fault! Does not compute! Rob Ford should be blamed for Toronto’s existing gridlock because he cancelled a program developed in response to … Toronto’s existing gridlock? Sorry, Mr. Chiarelli, but without bending the time-space continuum in ways currently unknown to our science, that just doesn’t work.

Stranger than the space-age logic required to blame Rob Ford for causing a problem he inherited is trying to suss out why Mr. Chiarelli felt compelled to blame anyone. Toronto’s traffic catastrophe is a slow-moving train (car?) wreck that was decades in the making. The city has exploded in size over the last several generations, and the suburbs around it have grown even faster. More people now live around Toronto than live inside it, and businesses have scattered across the region. People have to flit back and forth between home and work. But with a few exceptions, they’re still trying to shuttle along the same freeways and transit lines that they would have been using decades ago. There have been some improvements to the region’s transportation infrastructure, but not enough to keep up with the growth. It’s not hard to figure out. Pack millions of additional people into one relatively confined geographic area and, presto. It’s harder for them to all move around at the same time.

Basically everyone and anyone shares responsibility for this. It’s been a problem decades in the making, and has been largely ignored by politicians at every level and of every political stripe. Which makes it odd that the Liberals would feel defensive enough to bring it up … and even stranger that they’d blame a guy who took office in December. It can be argued that Ford’s transit plan for Toronto will result in worse future gridlock than David Miller’s would have, but that’s about it.

The Liberals have enough to answer for as it is: spending boondoggles, an ailing economy, rampant spending and soaring debt. They don’t need to get defensive about things that actually aren’t their fault. And they shouldn’t pick fights with Toronto’s popular mayor while trying to deflect responsibility for a problem no one thinks they caused.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/matt-gurney-dont-blame-us-say-ontario-liberals-blame-rob-ford/feed/0stdRob FordPosted Toronto Political Panel: The end of the line for the Sheppard subway?http://news.nationalpost.com/toronto/posted-toronto-political-panel-the-end-of-the-line-for-the-sheppard-subway
http://news.nationalpost.com/toronto/posted-toronto-political-panel-the-end-of-the-line-for-the-sheppard-subway#commentsSun, 29 May 2011 23:27:03 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=67599

Jonathan Goldsbie, Matt Gurney and Chris Selley discuss the not-so-surprising revelation that the Sheppard subway will be a little more complicated to build than Rob Ford had led us to believe.

Selley: Poor Rob Ford. He appoints a veteran conservative former councillor, TTC vice-chair and GO Transit chair to a $100,000-a-year job in effect heading up the Sheppard subway project — and what does Gordon Chong deliver in return? Common sense! It’s almost inconceivable, as he told the Toronto Star’s Royson James, that the funding sources Ford has discussed — a federal public-private-partnership fund, plus development fees — will bring in enough dough. We’ll need other revenue streams — road tolls, perhaps, or congestion fees, or both, and we should start talking about them now. A fine idea, in general. But will car-drivers’ loyalty to Ford really extend to paying up front for an idea that they must know, in their heart of hearts, makes very little sense? What say you, conservative Matt of the suburbs?

Gurney: Well, probably not if you put it to them like that. Especially if they were already in a bad mood because their 20-minute trip into work had just inexplicably taken an hour due to a light drizzle. But I do indeed believe that if you were able to convince people that if road tolls would go directly and transparently into improving transit, you’d find some support. Back in the campaign, I had serious reservations about Sarah Thomson’s toll plan, which would have dinged people $5 to use the Don Valley Parkway or the Gardiner. It seemed to me that people would just clog the other surface routes. But if you applied a congestion charge or some form of electronic tolling system, and then very publicly and visibly poured the money into subways and other transit, it could fly. I’d go for it, and I think a lot of my fellow commuters would, too.

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Goldsbie: If anyone could sell skeptical suburbanites on a road usage charge, it would be Rob Ford. But he won’t. This is the man who reversed his position on the plastic bag levy after hearing from a handful of holiday shoppers. Of course, he also premises his Sheppard subway obsession on similar one-on-one feedback. But, goddamnit, he promised he would complete the project without public money, and he will sure as hell try, even if it can’t be done. He’s already listing the line as among the accomplishments of his first six months: “We said we were gonna build subways,” he proclaimed at Council. “We did that.” The confused merger of past, present, and future is easier to accept once you understand that he is accustomed to reality bending and reshaping itself around his will, like a bullet in The Matrix. He doesn’t deal well with choices, especially those of a binary nature: Lower taxes or better services? Screw that! Faced with the decision of constructing the Sheppard subway line from a diverse array of funding sources or not building it at all, I expect his brain will break.

Selley: Matt’s fellow commuters might go for tolls for “infrastructure improvements,” as he puts it. But for an east-west subway line that won’t make sense, even as Ford sells it, unless thousands of people move to the places where the subway will go? Ha, ha, and a third time, ha. Reality will intrude. What we’re seeing here, I think, is the beginning of the end of the Sheppard subway extension. It will be very interesting to see how Transit City’s potential beneficiaries/victims assess the plan once the real alternative — absolutely nothing — is revealed at last.

Gurney: That’s definitely possible, Chris. As you and I have discussed, the safest bet in Toronto is that much will be said and nothing accomplished. So I won’t be surprised if the proposed Sheppard extension comes to nothing. But just to play the optimist, while I grant you that I and my fellow condemned commuters won’t benefit much by linking Downsview Park and Fairview Mall, it could still get done if Ford bills it as merely the first phase of a dramatic expansion of Toronto’s subway system, with more broadly useful projects to come once Sheppard proves the funding model works. And let’s face it. The city is so far behind on transit infrastructure that anything will literally be better than nothing. So long as Ford can show shovels in the ground, he might be OK here. And poor commuters like me are pretty much resigned to things never ever getting better, anyway. Anyone know any good audiobooks for the drive in?

Goldsbie: I think Chris already used up our “ha” quotient for this week. But, hey, you know that there already were shovels in the ground on Transit City, right? And that Rob Ford and his merry band of fantasists did in fact opt for nothing instead of something? Though I do suppose that if you’re resigned to things never getting better, Ford is as fine a mayor as any. As for audiobooks, The Death and Life of Great American Cities arrives this fall. Presumably, Dark Age Ahead will come later.

- Matt Gurney is a member of the Post’s editorial board and deputy editor of FullComment.com, the Post’s opinion blog. Follow him on Twitter at @mattgurney.

- Jonathan Goldsbie has no official title at the Post, and so into that void inserts the phrase “Resident Communist.” Follow him on Twitter at @goldsbie.

- Chris Selley is the Post’s City Hall columnist. Follow him on Twitter at @cselley.

Waterfront TorontoAn artist’s rendering of the proposed development for the Don Lands. Waterfront Toronto has spent $750-million on such attractions as Sugar Beach and Sherbourne Commons.

By Natalie Alcoba and Peter Kuitenbrouwer

Frustration with the pace and pricey bureaucracy of redeveloping Toronto’s port lands has got Mayor Rob Ford’s administration wondering if the city can sell off some of its own parcels separate from the agency that has been guiding transformation on the lake shore.

The federal, Ontario and city governments created Waterfront Toronto in 2001 as the “master planner and lead developer” on 210 hectares of prime real estate that had historically been the domain of industry. Of that land, Toronto owns 56%, the province 12%, Ottawa 12% through the Toronto Port Authority, and 20% is in the hands of the private sector.

So far, Waterfront Toronto has spent about $750-million, split evenly among the three levels of government, and cut ribbons on such star attractions as Sugar Beach, Sherbourne Commons and Corus Quay. But critics say progress is much too slow, and the bureaucracy too costly.

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“Certainly there is some discussion about whether it’s viable to accelerate some of it,” said Councillor Peter Milczyn, a member of the mayor’s executive. “Can we hive off some of the land that’s city-owned away from that process and do that first and Waterfront Toronto would continue at its pace? I know that’s a discussion that’s taking place.”

He was among three members of Mayor Ford’s executive committee who raised questions about Waterfront Toronto’s success and how it spends money. Mr. Milczyn says there has been “frustration” with the pace of work, and transparency around contracts.

For his part, the Mayor doesn’t appear to have much time for the agency. After being elected, Mr. Ford asked to retain a seat on the Waterfront Toronto board, a spot negotiated by his predecessor, David Miller. But he has skipped both board meetings the agency has held since he took office — in February and March — and also skipped a “strategic board session” that Waterfront Toronto held in March.

When John Campbell, the chief executive of Waterfront Toronto, has come to City Hall, he has met the Mayor’s brother, Doug Ford, and his chief of staff, Amir Remtulla, but never with the Mayor himself.

Mr. Campbell insisted he reads nothing into Mr. Ford’s absence from board meetings, which a spokesperson from the Mayor’s office said was due to scheduling issues.

“It’s a standing invitation,” said Mr. Campbell. “This is fairly typical that it takes them a while to decide who’s going to sit where. The Mayor has got a seat on our board. We have briefed them on what’s happening with our development deals and they are eager to see those go forward.”

Some councillors are also eager to question how money is being spent.

“A ton of money has gone out the door [at Waterfront Toronto] and very little value,” said Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, an executive member. “They have squandered money on consultants. They have sole-sourced a lot of arrangements, they have sole-sourced a lot of projects and it’s fertile ground for any consultant wanting a gig.”

Added Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday: “The list of all those [earning] over $100,000 … it’s an enormous amount of money.”

Michelle Noble, a spokeswoman for Waterfront Toronto, said the agency employs 68 people. Of those, 25 employees, or nearly half, earned more than $100,000 last year. Among those 25, the average salary is about $180,000 per year, plus taxable benefits.

“My God, phenomenal stuff is happening,” he said. He noted Mayor Ford’s absence from Waterfront Toronto board meetings: “If the guy showed up he would learn a few things about what’s going on down there.”

Ken Greenberg, a Toronto architect who co-authored the plan for the Lower Donlands in the waterfront, also heaped on the praise.

“Waterfront Toronto, after years of effort, has finally produced what the public in Toronto has long been asking for: a plan for a new waterfront,” Mr. Greenberg said. “This is one of the most significant projects underway in North America, if not the world. There are major developers who are doing things.”

Waterfront Toronto has signed development agreements with Great Gulf on the north side of Queens Quay, with Hines Corp., a U.S. developer, south of Queens Quay and east of Sherbourne Commons, and with Urban Capital on land at the West Don Lands adjacent to the planned home of the Pan Am Games athlete’s village.

“I think there is certainly a good opportunity for development in that area, and absolutely we want to see the private sector involved,” said Adrienne Batra, the Mayor’s press secretary. “How tax dollars are being spent is being looked at for the next budget.”

GOLDSBIE: Rob Ford is a terrible fiscal conservative. In fact, when it comes to casually tossing money into mega-project black holes, I would argue that he even embodies the right’s worst stereotypes of the left. The provincial government had a set amount of money available to construct transit lines on Sheppard Avenue East, Finch Avenue West, and along the bulk of Eglinton. Instead, for reasons that have never been justified or explained with any policy or evidence, Mayor Ford has restructured the deal so that virtually all of the cash will be sunk into burying the parts of the Eglinton line that would otherwise not have been buried. We will get one transit project instead of three. In addition to this offensively inefficient use of funds, he’s also put the City on the hook for $49–100 million in cancellation fees. And he has somehow committed us to this without consulting Council. At what point do we start to demand better than “better than nothing”?

SELLEY: Can’t argue with much of that. Ford’s previous insistence that it wouldn’t cost any money to switch gears was always and obviously bull roar, and it has since been proven to be bull roar, and shame on anyone who thought otherwise and is now disappointed. $49-million, at minimum, is down the drain, all because of the Mayor’s personal hangup about surface rail transit — well, and also because the Millerites generally felt defending their vision was beneath them. But as for Jonathan’s question: We always demand better than “better than nothing,” and we shouldn’t stop. But here we are. Relentless optimist that I am, I will look on the bright side: Transit City supporters would agree an LRT on Eglinton is a higher priority than a subway along Sheppard. The former is now quite likely to happen, and the latter … let’s say “less” likely. Meanwhile, nothing will get worse on Sheppard, and things will get better on Finch when the Spadina extension opens in 2015.

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GURNEY: I think Chris has it right there. I remain optimistic, perhaps foolishly so, that Ford will be able to find some mechanism with which to fund his Sheppard subway expansion using private-sector dollars with minimal or zero contributions from any level of government. And I’ll positively reach for the moon here and say that I’m optimistic that if he can pull that off, he might discover a model that can then be used to build transit across Finch, and maybe even another north-south line someday to take the pressure off the at-capacity Yonge line. But this being Toronto, where talk of plans always surpasses enacting of plans, I only count Eglinton as likely to happen, and that’s a good thing. It will be helpful for the city and I’m happy it’ll be mostly underground. I’d like more, obviously, but as I’ve written many times before, traffic is so dysfunctional in Toronto that I’ll take what I can get and content myself that something is indeed better than nothing.

SELLEY: Well, we already have an under-capacity north-south line to take the pressure off the Yonge line — it’s called the University-Spadina line. But why are you so hopeful about Sheppard? I mean, who cares? Even Ford’s plan implicitly admits that the only way it would ever be remotely financially viable is if thousands of people who don’t live there moved there. Even if you’re fanatically anti-LRT, surely it makes far more sense to build a subway where people already live — i.e., downtown, or even on Eglinton. For that matter, why not make Sheppard another underground LRT instead of a subway? Quite simply, other than on Eglinton, nothing about this plan makes much sense to me at all. (Although I’d be remiss if I didn’t congratulate the city for its decision — at long last — to adopt the Presto fare card and be done with it. Bravo! Quickly, please!)

GURNEY: Yes, all hail Presto. It’s good to see the TTC’s fare system moving boldly forward into the late 20th Century (I actually don’t know when Presto-style cards were invented, but you take my point). Chris, I’d be happy to see underground LRTs under Eglinton, under Finch, under Sheppard, running up and down Bayview and Don Mills, I don’t care. As many of them as we can have. Pick something and build it. Eglinton was a good place to start. As to being optimistic for Sheppard, Ford seems to be determined to get things done and I suspect he’ll find a way. What I’m not optimistic about — hopeful, but not optimistic — is that it will be a huge success that warrants repeating elsewhere. That would be terrific, but we’ll see. My main fear is that we’ll just argue about what to put where for so long that nothing gets done while another two million people move into the GTA, leaving me commuting by skateboard. Which might be inevitable anyway.

GOLDSBIE: I’m privileged to live downtown and have no obligation to ever take the TTC during rush hour. Chris is privileged to live near Eglinton station and work at York Mills and Don Mills. Matt is privileged to live outside the city and drive in to work at the same place. But there are a whole hell of a lot of people who live in Scarborough, Etobicoke, and North York for whom the transit status quo is simply intolerable and whose degrading commutes will barely be ameliorated, if at all. What were to be imminent improvements to their lives are being set back by at least a decade because of one man’s arbitrary aversion to surface rail. Thanks to Miller, Metrolinx, and the provincial government, things are only going to get better on Eglinton. Thanks to Rob Ford, things are only going to get worse in the northern suburbs. But, hey, now he also says we’re gonna get a subway on Finch in ten years. It’s one thing to have a vision; it’s another to cruelly offer false hope.

I support Rob Ford’s new public transit plan for Toronto. I also supported David Miller’s public transit plan. And if the next mayor comes along and cancels Mr. Ford’s transit plan and replaces it with another transit plan, assuming it’s reasonably inoffensive, I’ll probably support it too. It’s true that following through on these plans would be incalculably better than abandoning them for new ones, but, well, this is the city we choose to live in.

The question should be: Is this likely to make public transit better than it is now? In the case of the plan Mr. Ford and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty announced Thursday morning, the answer is yes. Mind you, that’s different than saying the plan makes sense. In fact, it’s only because one of its central planks appears not to make any sense that I support it.

There are two likely chief outcomes here:

On Eglinton Avenue, it’s reasonable to assume the plan will come to fruition. In, say, a decade, we’ll have an underground LRT running from Jane Street in the west to Kennedy Station in the east, and then along the Scarborough RT platform to Scarborough Town Centre. That’s an unqualified improvement on the status quo.

Everywhere else — including on Sheppard Avenue, where Mr. Ford wants to extend the subway west to Downsview station and east to Scarborough Town Centre — the most likely outcome seems to be the status quo. I.e., nothing. Mr. Ford doesn’t really have a plan to come up with the $4.2-billion he needs. More accurate would be to say he has a plan to come up with a plan. He hopes the lion’s share of the dough will come from property development fees. Most experts think he’s dreaming.

Now, theoretically Mr. Ford could simply borrow $4.2-billion from Money Mart and build his subway, in hopes that population densities would eventually increase enough to justify its existence — even though that’s yet to happen on the existing Sheppard line, which operates well under capacity, thus undermining the whole idea of a Sheppard subway. But that would be an incredible amount of risk for the city to take on.

I retain enough trust in Mr. Ford, and more to the point in his supporters, to believe they would not tolerate more than doubling the city’s debt load in order to build a subway that most people consider unnecessary to serve people who don’t even live there yet. (If I’m wrong, I’ll gladly withdraw my support for Mr. Ford’s plan!)

This analysis ignores the opportunity costs, of course. For the same money, we could have had a longer Eglinton LRT, with only some of it underground. Instead of the probable nothing along Sheppard east of Don Mills Road, we could have had an at-grade LRT. And the Finch West LRT is now both unloved by the Mayor and totally unfunded.

As I say, I liked the old plan. But the new plan doesn’t ruin anything that currently exists, nor does it rule out achieving those outcomes in future. The $8-billion the province committed to this week isn’t the last $8-billion in the world.

As for the much-lamented Finch situation, we need to remember there is no iron-clad guarantee it would ever have been built. Queen’s Park had already forced the line to be delayed and chopped in half: It was originally supposed to run from Humber College to Yonge Street, but was scaled back to terminate at Finch West Station on the Spadina line extension.

And that extension means things are going get better on Finch anyway. Jane and Finch is a ponderous 8.5 kilometres by bus from Finch station and 12 kilometres from Jane station. By 2015, it will be two kilometres from Finch West station — people will walk it on nice days. If the Eglinton LRT gets built, its western terminus will be as close to Jane and Finch as Finch station.

This isn’t the end of the world, in other words. It’s just the end of another plan — and it doesn’t even need to be that.

March 31, 2011 — Our panel discusses how Now Magazine is treating Rob Ford; how Doug Holyday is defending his request for help with legal costs; and why not everyone is thrilled about the revamped transit plan.

The city and province are set to announce a revamped transit plan to extend the Sheppard subway in both directions and tunnel an underground line along Eglinton Avenue that stretches from Black Creek Drive to Kennedy Road.

Riders would be able to travel that midtown train all the way to Scarborough Centre, once the dilapidated Scarborough RT is converted into a light-rail line, Mayor Rob Ford and Premier Dalton McGuinty will announce Thursday morning.

The deal is somewhat of a victory for Mayor Ford, who has vowed to deliver on underground rail but still has to secure private financing, and evidence that a Liberal government facing a tough election is willing to bend. But both sides have compromised.

The $12.4-billion plan, with construction reportedly to be completed by 2020, took months of negotiations after Mr. Ford declared his predecessor’s light-rail plan known as Transit City “dead” on his first day in office.

The provincial government is committing more than $8-billion for the 20-kilometre Eglinton light-rail line, which was originally going to be underground for an 11-kilometre stretch, and the Scarborough RT. Any extra money will go to building the Sheppard subway, a key plank in Mr. Ford’s election campaign, up to $650-million.

With a price tag of more than $4-billion, the Sheppard extension will require the city to find private financing. The idea is to dig from Downsview Station to Yonge, and then east of Don Mills to the Scarborough Town Centre. The new plan scraps the Finch LRT in favour of “enhanced” bus service.

“We have an agreement that will see major transit expansion in the city of Toronto, and I think it’s a real win for both the province and the city,” said TTC chairwoman Karen Stintz. “We would like to start the construction on Eglinton immediately. We have the borers, so we are planning for that construction to start right away. The construction on Sheppard will be dependent on the business-case that we develop and the partnerships that we establish.”

Transit City advocates promote surface light rail as a cheaper way to bring rapid transit to the city’s suburbs, where the demand for a subway does not yet exist. Mayor Ford is convinced tracks on the roads will snarl traffic even further, and campaigned to take expansion underground. On Dec. 1, he ordered TTC officials to come up with an alternative that featured rapid transit in tunnels.

The next day, TTC chief general manager Gary Webster told reporters that the TTC would take “the next six weeks” to cost out the Mayor’s subway plan, and also find out how much it would cost to turn the LRT plan into subways, or to build them underground.

On Wednesday, Brad Ross, the TTC spokesman, said the project was back in the hands of Metrolinx, the provincial transit agency that is overseeing transit expansion.

By then, City Hall was already a-flutter with rumours that a city-province deal was imminent, with Councillor Maria Augimeri sending out a news release predicting that the LRT along Finch was about to be “turfed.”

Ms. Stintz said the TTC will need to obtain city council’s approval once it secures financing for the Sheppard subway. She said council has already approved the environmental assessment on the tranche between Black Creek and Laird Drive that was always going to be underground, and will have to conduct another assessment on the additional stretch to Kennedy.

Opposition councillors denounced the plan as “reckless” and announced a news conference for Thursday.

“This is a terrible deal for Toronto,” said Councillor Janet Davis (Beaches-East York). “It means we will have half as much coverage and serve far fewer Torontonians with rapid transit” than the original plan.

“The TTC general manager was directed to report to council on an assessment of the Mayor’s alternative plan. As elected officials, we have an obligation to review these plans to determine what is in the best interest in our communities and the city.”

Ms. Davis called the plan to secure enough private financing to build Sheppard a “fantasy.”

Councillor Michael Thompson, a member of the Mayor’s executive, was more optimistic.

“One of the things I’ve learned is there isn’t a shortage of money, there is a shortage of ideas to allow the money to flow. I’m not daunted,” he said of the public-private model.

“This is good news all around for the city. I think it’s historic, quite frankly. I’m extremely excited and ecstatic that the Mayor has achieved an amazing objective of his. It will be of great benefit to all Torontonians.”

A report suggested that the province’s regional electronic fare card known as Presto was part of the deal. Under the previous administration, the Toronto Transit Commission had been pushing another “open payment” option. Ms. Stintz said the province has made it clear it wants to implement a regional electronic fare card, but that this deal is about transit expansion. “Only the commission can make a decision on fare payment at the TTC,” said Ms. Stintz.